Many years ago I became friends with the mayor of a city whose population was about 200,000 – big enough to present the city’s leader with the gamut of civic challenges. At the time I was a professor in the college of business administration of a major university. It was my custom to invite guests from the “real world” beyond the cloister of academia, the world from which I came and to which I would return, to speak to my classes. So, when teaching a graduate class on policy formulation (how to decide how to decide) I invited my mayor friend, a very savvy guy.
In his presentation he excellently described a day in the life of a mid-sized city mayor – how he dealt with issues ranging from the mundane to the unexpected – and in the Q&A session that followed, a student asked, “When facing a difficult decision, how do you know what to do?” Without hesitation, Mr. Mayor said: “I find an expert in the matter who tells me the right thing to do. Then I decide the political thing to do.”
That answer stuck with me in the decades since. The right thing and the political thing are rarely the same thing.
And so it was this week when the military career of General Stanley McChrystal essentially came to an end. In an incredible act of stupidity this talented combat general had allowed himself and his staff to be followed around by a recorder-toting, anti-war reporter for a left-wing magazine gathering damning tidbits of insolence toward civilian authority. However well-deserved those remarks might have been, First Amendment free speech rights don’t apply to the military.
Reading the gotcha’ article that achieved a defeat by the press which the Taliban couldn’t achieve on the battlefield, I found what I would have expected to find among a group of breast-beating warriors full of bravado and guts – frat boy talk. After all, General McChrystal didn’t get to be a war commander by being a politician. He got it by achieving results. Before ascending to his present position, he commanded the secretive special ops “spook works” unit that, among other accomplishments, tracked down and killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2006, a truly bad guy.
McChrystal’s comments and even more those of his aides were impolitic but not insubordinate. Bush 43, Carter, and Truman had all fired commanders who challenged their policies, if not their authority. Lincoln, a longsuffering soul if there ever was one, fired the risk averse General McClellan, his senior commander, after “Little Mac” repeatedly failed to follow orders to get moving against General Lee in the early days of the Civil War. McChrystal supported the president's strategy and Obama acknowledged that this was so when he fired him.
McChrystal’s willingness to have insulting comments go on record showed tone deafness toward Obama’s prickly, thin-skinned nature. Unlike his alleged hero, Lincoln, who endured numerous overt insults from McClellan and still said that he would hold the reins of his general’s horse if he would only fight, Obama chose the political thing over the right thing. Changing generals in the middle of a war is risky. Changing generals in the middle of a surge campaign, the current operations in Marja and thereafter Kandahar, is even riskier.
While McChrystal had issued a press statement apologizing for the indiscretions reported in Rolling Stone, arguably the right thing to have done would have been for Obama to recognize that military sniping about civilian policy is commonplace in private conversations. Letting it become public was McChrystal’s sin, born out of political naiveté. If Obama had required McChrystal to stand by him and make a public apology, which Obama could then have graciously accepted while noting that he and his general had had “frank discussions,” faces could have been saved, and even more importantly, the only general who has been able to gain the confidence of enigmatic Hamid Karzai would have been saved.
Once again, however, Obama’s leadership inexperience and his inability to "suffer the slings and arrows” directed at him showed through. In his Rose Garden announcement this week that General Petraeus would replace McChrystal, Obama said, “I [do not] make this decision out of any sense of personal insult.” (Yeah, sure.) “Stan McChrystal has always shown great courtesy and carried out my orders faithfully,” however, “the conduct represented in the recently published article … erodes the trust that's necessary for our team to work together to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan.”
Team? What team? A team implies a group of people who work together to achieve a purpose. Obama could not have assembled a more dysfunctional bunch than the ones surrounding him.
Obama selected Karl Eikenberry to be his Afghan ambassador and Richard Holbrooke to be his special policy envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, both of whom would serve along side of General McChrystal. Eikenberry is a retired Lt. General, junior to and less successful than McChrystal’s accomplishments in the field. Eikenberry dislikes and mistrusts Karzai. His second-guessing, cable leaking behavior bordered on petty jealousy. He opposed McChrystal’s counterinsurgency, the Afghan troop build-up, and the surge. Holbrooke has the personality of sandpaper, doesn’t get along well with the military or the State Department, and contradicted McChrystal to the point of causing Karzai to wonder who the heck is in charge here. Not only could these three not work together, they don’t like each other.
Combine these three with Joe Biden’s assertions that “You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ contradictions that any troop draw down was contingent on the conditions on the ground, Rahm Immanuel’s further contradiction that July 2011 was THE date for starting withdrawal, and the flap caused by National Security Advisor James Jones’ public criticism that Karzai wasn’t doing enough to rein in corruption and drug trafficking during the Afghan president’s recent visit to Washington.
Where’s the team?
On top of all of this, we have a president who agonized for three months before he would send the additional troops that McChrystal requested for the surge, and even then sent less than the requested number with an 18-month shelf life before they would be pulled out. Obama’s West Point speech announcing the troop increase did not use the words “win” or “victory” in its entirety and neither did his Rose Garden appointment of Petraeus to take over from McChrystal.
The war is being fought with such political correctness that there are lawyers on the ground in Afghanistan combat zone telling troops what they can do and not do. In one instance, troops pinned down by enemy fire asked for an artillery round on the point of fire and were refused because of potential collateral damage. In another instance, troops pinned down asked for a artillery smoke round so they could escape. Asked if there were any civilians nearby, which there were, the round was delivered a kilometer off target, even though it is incapable of damage or injury, forcing the troops to shoot their way out of harm’s way.
Surrounded by the likes of Holbrooke and Eikenberry, the dissonance among the White House league, and the Kafkaesque circumstances under which the Afghan war is being fought, can there be any wonder why McChrystal and his snake-eating young Turks became frustrated and disrespectful?
If McChrystal was to be fired, why wasn’t Eikenberry and Holbrooke also fired and Biden and Immanuel muzzled? Why didn’t Obama confirm that withdrawal was contingent on the conditions on the ground? Did the political thing once win over the right thing?
Into this maelstrom now steps General Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command, whose theater of operations includes the Middle East, Egypt, and central Asia. In effect he will assume the duties of his subordinate commander McChrystal. There isn’t time to get another commander up to speed. Whether Petraeus will (or is physically able) to retain his CentCom role is not yet known. If not, this will be a step down for him. But given McChrystal’s firing, it is Obama’s only option – another reason to have done the right thing rather than the political thing and sought some way for accommodation with McChrystal.
Petraeus won his spurs with his counterinsurgency surge in Iraq. But there he had the advantage of a generally well-educated populace capable of forming a government and the mule-headed persistence of George Bush, which eventually translated into an Iraqi willingness to cooperate with the allies and join us in the fight against the bad guys who were blowing up a sizable number of Iraqi citizens.
As the Russians learned in the 1980s, Afghanistan is another world, almost prehistoric, with an illiterate population, mountainous terrain, no infrastructure, and a citizenry that not infrequently cheers for the bad guys. It is more lethally Islamic than Iraq. When we have been able to get local cooperation, if our troops leave, the Taliban slips back in and kills the collaborators. The Afghan army lacks discipline and leadership, often goes AWOL, and returns from military leave stoned on opium and heroin. Officers steal the pay of their soldiers. Because of widespread illiteracy, the nascent army can’t read the training manuals to learn how to use weapons. The central government is almost a fiction. And unlike the Iraqis and Bush, the Afghans who could help us help them are uncertain of Obama’s commitment to stay until they can defend themselves against al-Qaeda and the Taliban – assuming they want to.
The Afghan war has already ended the careers of two general officers – McChrystal and his predecessor, David McKiernan. Let’s hope it doesn’t end Petraeus’ too.
[Editor’s note: Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the editorial positions of Bill’s Bloviations, if you find them thought-provocative, please send the URL to your friends. It will help move the blog up in the Google search returns.]
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Obama Agonistes
In 1935 Sinclair Lewis published a political novel about a charismatic presidential candidate, Senator Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, with a gift of “orgasmic oratory” who runs on a populist/socialist platform and who promises to lead the country out of its current economic crisis if elected – which he is.
''I want to stand up on my hind legs,'' he writes in Zero Hour, his widely read pre-election book, ''and not just admit but frankly holler right out that...we've got to change our system a lot, maybe even change the whole Constitution (but change it legally, not by violence)....The Executive has got to have a freer hand and be able to move quick in an emergency, and not be tied down by dumb shyster lawyer congressmen taking months to shoot off their mouths in debates.''
Once in office, Windrip appoints his friends to high offices, his economic policies are a disaster, his numbers don’t add up, and his Supreme Court appointees are “surprisingly unknown lawyers.” He convinces Americans that a crisis is brewing in which “powerful and secret enemies of American principles” threaten their freedom and that they should “bear with him” as he deals with the crisis.
He demands that Congress amend the Constitution to give him “complete control of legislation and execution,” which Congress refuses to do, whereupon Windrip declares that a state of martial law exists during the “present crisis” and he orders the arrest of more than a hundred Congressmen. Step by step, President Windrip establishes himself with dictatorial power,
Lewis’ tale seems so far-fetched that we would say it can’t happen here, which happens to be the title of the book – It Can’t Happen Here.
Or could it, maybe in a different way?
A little-known bill, the benignly named “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act,” is being rushed through Congress which would put a kill switch in Obama’s hand if he declares a “national cyber-emergency.” At his sole discretion, Obama could disconnect private-sector computers, Internet service providers, and search engines from the web for up to 30 days.
Let’s think the worst, which is a good starting point when the federal government is involved. Critics of the bill say it is so broadly worded that Obama could use it for political purposes and to plug whistle-blowing websites like WikiLeaks. Recent crises show the Obama White House will push the Constitutional envelop in using executive power. What’s to prevent our thin-skinned president from silencing cyberspace criticism if this bill becomes law? We could be confronting the biggest threat to First Amendment rights since the Republic began.
After a year of study, the Obama FTC is recommending new taxes to help the struggling newspaper industry in the Internet age. This wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that the print media is favorably disposed to Obama and the Democrats, whereas the Internet hosts bloviating bloggers (like me) who aren’t so friendly to them, would it? The FTC would like cell phone users to contribute 3% of their monthly cell phone bills and tax 5% of the purchases of computers, iPads and Kindles to help support newspapers and traditional journalism. Oh, and while they are at it, the Obama FTC wants to tax websites, like Drudge, because they get their headline links from the fossilizing print media. Is there a constitutional imprimatur for one free speech medium to subsidize a competitive medium?
George Bush’s unconstitutional $168 billion invasion of our private enterprise system got the Republicans so thoroughly thrown out of Congress that the survivors were too impotent in number to halt the $862 billion equally unconstitutional invasion launched by the Democrats. The Obama stimulus was supposed to keep unemployment below 8%. It is now 9.9% and has been above 10%. Not enough stimulus, says Obama, and asks for another $200 billion under the laughably titled “American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act.” By reckless spending, Obama is shaping the lives of future generations – long after he is out of power as the chief executive.
By what constitutional authority did Obama fire the CEO of a private company – General Motors?
By what constitutional authority did Obama expropriate $20 billion from the shareholders of a foreign corporation – a matter that was indisputably in the purview of the American civil justice system? I’m not an apologist for British Petroleum or the other owners of the Deepwater Horizon rig. Their property damaged our property and they must set things as right as they can be set. But in a constitutional democracy there is a right way and lots of wrong ways to do things. Obama chose the wrong way. Was it to show that he was a tough guy or was it a brazen revelation of his ideology?
During the visit of Mexican President Calderón, Obama not only stood by as a foreign head of state criticized Arizona’s new immigration law, but also he agreed with him. Obama frequently forgets that he was elected to represent America to the rest of the world, and the belief that, paraphrasing the post-revolutionary naval hero, Stephen Decatur, “My country right or wrong, but my country” seems to stick in his craw. The Obama White House has now confirmed that it will sue Arizona for passing a law that is a clone of the unenforced federal immigration law. A Washington Post-ABC News poll this week found that 58% of Americans support the Arizona measure, and 42% do so strongly. A Rasmussen poll shows 56% oppose the DOJ challenge while only 26% favor it. For whose benefit and on whose behalf is this federal lawsuit being filed?
When Obama was elected to bring “hope and change,” our country was strangling on Chicken Little economic hysterics and unemployment. Rather than focus on this, Obama tried to make the case that the real crisis was healthcare, squandering a year to force through an unpopular hijacking of the American healthcare system, a provision of which is a mandate that obligates free citizens to use their private funds to buy a product some are disinclined to buy. What language in the Constitution empowers the government to require this?
In Tuesday night’s oil spill speech, Obama chose the Oval Office for the first time since taking office. It has historically been the venue from which presidents make their most solemn pronouncements. Reagan used it to deliver his “touch the face of God” speech following the Challenger accident, Bush used it on the evening of the 9/11 attacks, and Nixon used it to announce his resignation – his 37th Oval Office speech.
Obama has a propensity to characterize certain events as a “crisis” in order to leverage his transformation of America into statist socialism, and his Tuesday night speech was no exception. His language was salted with martial synonyms descriptive of the struggle he sees himself called to lead – Obama Agonistes, Obama the Struggler. He spoke of “the battle we’re waging against an oil spill that is assaulting our shores” and promised that "we will fight this spill with everything we’ve got.” Warning that “there will be more oil and more damage before this siege is done” he proceeded to “lay out for you what our battle plan is.”
Free societies are messy disorganized things. People are busy with their own lives, pursuing their own agendas, investing themselves in things that are important to them. The Struggler wants to change society because, in his view, the current status quo isn’t right. His task is to get citizens on a war footing, to support his vision for replacing their messy disorganized society with the superior society he has in mind, and – most importantly – the Struggler has to restrict their freedom to resist his purpose.
Too harsh? Paranoid maybe?
Let’s look at his oil spill speech. Of its almost 2,700 words, fully one-third of them – the final third – were devoted to his stalled cap and trade agenda. The “logic” or his argument was structured as a deductive syllogism intended to lead the audience from fact to fact to the “logical” conclusion that we should stop dithering and embrace “green”, to wit: “… this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced” AND “… for decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered … we have talked and talked about the need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil fuels … we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires” THEREFORE “the time to embrace a clean energy future is now.”
There isn’t space here to anatomize Obama’s specious argument, but the assertion that the days of cheap oil are numbered is conditionally false and his assertion that “… we consume more than 20% of the world’s oil, but have less than 2% of the world’s oil reserves. And that’s part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean – because we’re running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water” is patently false. There are 23 million acres in Alaska that the federal government has declared off limits and we have one of the longest coastlines of any country in the world. We have enough fossil fuel reserves to supply all of our needs for 200 years but environmentalists prevent access to them.
Images of the Deepwater Horizon spill will remain on TV screens for months. Rahm Emanuel’s infamous advice, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste – and what I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before” has been served up in gift wrap. The spill will mobilize Obama’s congressional troopers and provide cover for them to ram through yet another costly and unpopular intrusion into the lives of Americans. A Harvard University study says the price of Obama’s ‘’green agenda” will be $7/gallon gas. Minority House Leader John Boehner revealed this week that the White House has told the Senate to resume work on the stalled cap and trade bill after the July 4 break and to be prepared to conference the bill in a lame duck session after the midterm elections. That means regardless of the gains Republicans may make in November, Democrats who lose their seats this fall will have one more chance to create Obama’s brave new world.
It can’t happen here? Well, it seems to be.
''I want to stand up on my hind legs,'' he writes in Zero Hour, his widely read pre-election book, ''and not just admit but frankly holler right out that...we've got to change our system a lot, maybe even change the whole Constitution (but change it legally, not by violence)....The Executive has got to have a freer hand and be able to move quick in an emergency, and not be tied down by dumb shyster lawyer congressmen taking months to shoot off their mouths in debates.''
Once in office, Windrip appoints his friends to high offices, his economic policies are a disaster, his numbers don’t add up, and his Supreme Court appointees are “surprisingly unknown lawyers.” He convinces Americans that a crisis is brewing in which “powerful and secret enemies of American principles” threaten their freedom and that they should “bear with him” as he deals with the crisis.
He demands that Congress amend the Constitution to give him “complete control of legislation and execution,” which Congress refuses to do, whereupon Windrip declares that a state of martial law exists during the “present crisis” and he orders the arrest of more than a hundred Congressmen. Step by step, President Windrip establishes himself with dictatorial power,
Lewis’ tale seems so far-fetched that we would say it can’t happen here, which happens to be the title of the book – It Can’t Happen Here.
Or could it, maybe in a different way?
A little-known bill, the benignly named “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act,” is being rushed through Congress which would put a kill switch in Obama’s hand if he declares a “national cyber-emergency.” At his sole discretion, Obama could disconnect private-sector computers, Internet service providers, and search engines from the web for up to 30 days.
Let’s think the worst, which is a good starting point when the federal government is involved. Critics of the bill say it is so broadly worded that Obama could use it for political purposes and to plug whistle-blowing websites like WikiLeaks. Recent crises show the Obama White House will push the Constitutional envelop in using executive power. What’s to prevent our thin-skinned president from silencing cyberspace criticism if this bill becomes law? We could be confronting the biggest threat to First Amendment rights since the Republic began.
After a year of study, the Obama FTC is recommending new taxes to help the struggling newspaper industry in the Internet age. This wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that the print media is favorably disposed to Obama and the Democrats, whereas the Internet hosts bloviating bloggers (like me) who aren’t so friendly to them, would it? The FTC would like cell phone users to contribute 3% of their monthly cell phone bills and tax 5% of the purchases of computers, iPads and Kindles to help support newspapers and traditional journalism. Oh, and while they are at it, the Obama FTC wants to tax websites, like Drudge, because they get their headline links from the fossilizing print media. Is there a constitutional imprimatur for one free speech medium to subsidize a competitive medium?
George Bush’s unconstitutional $168 billion invasion of our private enterprise system got the Republicans so thoroughly thrown out of Congress that the survivors were too impotent in number to halt the $862 billion equally unconstitutional invasion launched by the Democrats. The Obama stimulus was supposed to keep unemployment below 8%. It is now 9.9% and has been above 10%. Not enough stimulus, says Obama, and asks for another $200 billion under the laughably titled “American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act.” By reckless spending, Obama is shaping the lives of future generations – long after he is out of power as the chief executive.
By what constitutional authority did Obama fire the CEO of a private company – General Motors?
By what constitutional authority did Obama expropriate $20 billion from the shareholders of a foreign corporation – a matter that was indisputably in the purview of the American civil justice system? I’m not an apologist for British Petroleum or the other owners of the Deepwater Horizon rig. Their property damaged our property and they must set things as right as they can be set. But in a constitutional democracy there is a right way and lots of wrong ways to do things. Obama chose the wrong way. Was it to show that he was a tough guy or was it a brazen revelation of his ideology?
During the visit of Mexican President Calderón, Obama not only stood by as a foreign head of state criticized Arizona’s new immigration law, but also he agreed with him. Obama frequently forgets that he was elected to represent America to the rest of the world, and the belief that, paraphrasing the post-revolutionary naval hero, Stephen Decatur, “My country right or wrong, but my country” seems to stick in his craw. The Obama White House has now confirmed that it will sue Arizona for passing a law that is a clone of the unenforced federal immigration law. A Washington Post-ABC News poll this week found that 58% of Americans support the Arizona measure, and 42% do so strongly. A Rasmussen poll shows 56% oppose the DOJ challenge while only 26% favor it. For whose benefit and on whose behalf is this federal lawsuit being filed?
When Obama was elected to bring “hope and change,” our country was strangling on Chicken Little economic hysterics and unemployment. Rather than focus on this, Obama tried to make the case that the real crisis was healthcare, squandering a year to force through an unpopular hijacking of the American healthcare system, a provision of which is a mandate that obligates free citizens to use their private funds to buy a product some are disinclined to buy. What language in the Constitution empowers the government to require this?
In Tuesday night’s oil spill speech, Obama chose the Oval Office for the first time since taking office. It has historically been the venue from which presidents make their most solemn pronouncements. Reagan used it to deliver his “touch the face of God” speech following the Challenger accident, Bush used it on the evening of the 9/11 attacks, and Nixon used it to announce his resignation – his 37th Oval Office speech.
Obama has a propensity to characterize certain events as a “crisis” in order to leverage his transformation of America into statist socialism, and his Tuesday night speech was no exception. His language was salted with martial synonyms descriptive of the struggle he sees himself called to lead – Obama Agonistes, Obama the Struggler. He spoke of “the battle we’re waging against an oil spill that is assaulting our shores” and promised that "we will fight this spill with everything we’ve got.” Warning that “there will be more oil and more damage before this siege is done” he proceeded to “lay out for you what our battle plan is.”
Free societies are messy disorganized things. People are busy with their own lives, pursuing their own agendas, investing themselves in things that are important to them. The Struggler wants to change society because, in his view, the current status quo isn’t right. His task is to get citizens on a war footing, to support his vision for replacing their messy disorganized society with the superior society he has in mind, and – most importantly – the Struggler has to restrict their freedom to resist his purpose.
Too harsh? Paranoid maybe?
Let’s look at his oil spill speech. Of its almost 2,700 words, fully one-third of them – the final third – were devoted to his stalled cap and trade agenda. The “logic” or his argument was structured as a deductive syllogism intended to lead the audience from fact to fact to the “logical” conclusion that we should stop dithering and embrace “green”, to wit: “… this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced” AND “… for decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered … we have talked and talked about the need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil fuels … we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires” THEREFORE “the time to embrace a clean energy future is now.”
There isn’t space here to anatomize Obama’s specious argument, but the assertion that the days of cheap oil are numbered is conditionally false and his assertion that “… we consume more than 20% of the world’s oil, but have less than 2% of the world’s oil reserves. And that’s part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean – because we’re running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water” is patently false. There are 23 million acres in Alaska that the federal government has declared off limits and we have one of the longest coastlines of any country in the world. We have enough fossil fuel reserves to supply all of our needs for 200 years but environmentalists prevent access to them.
Images of the Deepwater Horizon spill will remain on TV screens for months. Rahm Emanuel’s infamous advice, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste – and what I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before” has been served up in gift wrap. The spill will mobilize Obama’s congressional troopers and provide cover for them to ram through yet another costly and unpopular intrusion into the lives of Americans. A Harvard University study says the price of Obama’s ‘’green agenda” will be $7/gallon gas. Minority House Leader John Boehner revealed this week that the White House has told the Senate to resume work on the stalled cap and trade bill after the July 4 break and to be prepared to conference the bill in a lame duck session after the midterm elections. That means regardless of the gains Republicans may make in November, Democrats who lose their seats this fall will have one more chance to create Obama’s brave new world.
It can’t happen here? Well, it seems to be.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Obama’s Effete Leadership
When Candidate Obama was selling himself to the electorate, he promised with King Canutian assurance a new era of “hope and change,” a post-partisan climate in Washington in which legislation would no longer be enacted by the power of the majority– certainly no more one-vote laws – that the "planet would begin to heal," and "the rise of the oceans begin to slow."
Bold talk for someone who has never held a private sector job, a “real” job in my opinion, or even a political position giving executive experience. Now, after nearly 18 months of President Obama’s brand of leadership, hopefully those who voted for a man who was to herald in this chimerical millennium have come to their senses and realized that, stentorian rhetoric aside, proven experience and leadership really do matter when it comes to occupying the highest office of the land.
A case in point …
On April 20 a wellhead explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, killed eleven men and began spewing oil into the Gulf at a rate that was conservatively estimated at about 5,000 barrels a day. With the history of the Valdez oil spill and other spills around the world, one could reasonably expect that this would have piqued the attention of the people’s chief representative and leader in affairs of national interest. It didn’t.
As oil burbled 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf, Obama was flying back on April 20 from a fundraiser for Barbara Boxer. On Day Four of the developing crisis, April 23, the Obama family (including dog) took off for a three-day vacation in Asheville, NC to chomp on some ribs, play some golf, and get massaged at the Grove Park Resort. After hosting a White House reception for the NY Yankees on the 26th, eating a slice of rhubarb pie at Jerry’s Diner during a fundraiser in Iowa on the 27th, lunching at Peggy Sue’s Diner during another fundraiser in Missouri on the 28th, followed by another fundraiser at the “swank” Washington home of a DNC faithful on the 29th and a comedy routine with Jay Leno on May 1, Obama finally found time in his high priority schedule of play and politics to visit the Louisiana coast on May 2 – the 13th day of the crisis.
You’d think Obama was finally engaged in the unfolding disaster that could be his “Katrina” moment, but think again. Between Day 14 and Day 25, Obama would host the Navy football team and Cinco de Mayo celebration at the White House, have private receptions for Nobel laureate Elie Weisel and Harmid Karzai, take Michelle on a date at the glitzy Komi restaurant in D.C., play an afternoon round of golf at Ft. Belvoir, and fly to another fundraiser in Buffalo with a side visit for hot wings at Duffs before he would find time to make a speech in the Rose Garden on May 14 to tell the American people what he was doing concerning the oil spill.
OK. Now he’s engaged. Not really. Another round of golf on the 15th and 16th (does this guy have time for the presidency?), a plant tour in Ohio during another fundraiser on the 18th, then the knock-your-socks-off state dinner for Mexican President Calderón on the 19th, followed by a White House meeting with rock star Bono (that’s surely an “A” priority), more golf on the 22nd at Andrews AF base outside of Washington (he must be trying to play every course in the area), another fundraiser in S.F. for Boxer hosted by the very rich and beautiful Getty family on the 25th, then skipping the Memorial Day tradition of wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknown, off for another three-day weekend vacation in Chicagoland (the second in a little over a month) on the 27th, which he interrupts for part of the 28th for a photo op of him digging his finger in the sand of a Louisiana beach (what a guy) before heading back up to Chicagoland, BBQ and beers with Michelle on the 29th, then some pick-up basketball at the University of Chicago on the 30th.
June 1 (Day 43) OB hosts Sir Paul McCartney at a White House love fest where Paul (and Faith Hill, Jonas Brothers, Emmylou Harris, David Grohl, et. al.) serenaded the swooning Michelle (when you’re the president, nothing is too good for your sweetie) and Snookums Obama chortled that the Beatles “"helped to lay the soundtrack for an entire generation" (‘aw shucks). Thanking Obama and the event’s co-sponsor, the U.S. Library of Congress, McCartney couldn’t let it go without a dig: “After the last eight years, it’s great to have a president who knows what a library is.”
June 2 (Day 44) OB appears with the noted oil spill expert, Larry King, on “Larry King Live” and gave his best imitation of emotion. He said that he was “angry and frustrated” about the oil spill. Then asked how he felt about his job, OB said it is the best job on earth. (I can understand why – look at the perks.)
June 6 (Day 48) OB hosts a party at the White House and then shuffles off to Ford’s Theater with Michelle for an evening of laughs and music. No mention by the President or White House that it was the 66th anniversary of D-day.
June 7 (Day 49) OB addresses the graduating class of Kalamazoo Central High where he exhorts them to take responsibility for their successes and failures (now there’s a novel idea) and “when you screw up … it’s the easiest thing in the world to start looking around for someone to blame. Your professor was too hard; your boss was a jerk; the coach was playing favorites; your friend just didn’t understand. We see it every day out in Washington, with folks calling each other names and making all sorts of accusations on TV.” (Well, he should know; he’s an expert at finger-pointing.)
June 8 (Day 50) OB is interviewed by Matt Lauer on the Today show where he makes a statement that will be remembered in his legacy. Asked about the panels of experts he had convened and the investigations he had commissioned, Obama snorted that he visited the Gulf a month ago to meet with fishermen before most media "talking heads" were paying attention to the issue and that, "I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar; we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers — so I know whose ass to kick." I’m sure that threat sent shivers of fear down the spines of the BP execs.
How fitting that a President who speaks in gutter language would have an Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, threatening that the government would 'have its boot on the throat of BP.'" Coupled with the addiction to profanity of Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Immanuel, these guys sound more like thugs than high government officials.
The fact is Obama began taking incoming fire from the press at least by May 30 when the NY Times criticized his lethargy in an editorial. The media that had adored Obama and deflected his incompetence in his handling of so many issues was now turning on him. The petulant Obama did what he has done ever since he became president and is criticized – he blames someone else and finger-points, not taking the advice he gave the Kalamazoo kids. In the financial meltdown, it was the fault of the “big banks,” in the healthcare crisis it was “big pharma” and the “big insurance” companies, and now it’s “big oil” and the greedy capitalist profit seeking companies like BP. Without any evidence of culpability, he accused the “oil industry’s cozy and sometimes corrupt relationship with government regulators” and how that has meant “little or no regulation at all.”
Releasing his DOJ goons, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that criminal and civil investigations had begun into the oil spill, threatening criminal prosecution if any environmental laws were found to have been violated. Wow! Under the Damoclean threat of incarceration, Obama’s leadership style certainly has a way of motivating folks to solve a problem getting worse by the day. He went on to warn the company execs to “make sure that BP is not lawyering up.” Obama ought to be happy BP stayed on the problem instead of leaving to focus on its legal liabilities.
Obama’s nemesis, Sarah Palin observed: “50 days in, and we’ve just learned another shocking revelation concerning the Obama administration’s response to the Gulf oil spill. In an interview aired this morning, President Obama admitted that he hasn’t met with or spoken directly to BP’s CEO Tony Hayward. His reasoning: ‘Because my experience is, when you talk to a guy like a BP CEO, he’s gonna’ say all the right things to me. I’m not interested in words. I’m interested in actions.’”
Years ago I gave a leadership speech entitled “The Power of Your Presence.” I subsequently turned it into an article and then into a chapter of a book I authored. The first principle of leadership, which Obama’s calendar shows he doesn’t get, is showing up! His phlegmatic leadership style is more akin to a head of state than presidential governing, which he willingly delegates to his co-prime ministers, Pelosi and Reid.
Another leadership principle that the vainglorious Obama doesn’t get is: never promise what you can’t personally deliver. Yet on May 28, feeling the heat of the media questioning his competence, Leader Obama confidently proclaimed "I ultimately take responsibility for solving this crisis…I am the president and the buck stops with me … the American people should know that from the moment this disaster began, the federal government has been in charge of the response effort… In case you're wondering who's responsible, I take responsibility." Poppycock! No leader worth his salt would put his personal reputation or that of his organization at risk by promising an outcome over which he has absolutely no power to deliver.
I’ll mention one other important principle of leadership that Obama doesn’t get: what’s done is done. The present state is the starting point for solving every problem – not who did what, not why or how something happened. Begin where you are. Solving a problem and diagnosing its cause are separate issues. Because Obama doesn’t get this principle either, he is as interested, if not more interested, in fixing blame than focusing all of the energy and resources he can muster to work along side of the BP experts (who are paralyzed in Admiral Thad Allen’s command structure) to minimize the irreparable damage that this catastrophe will cause. Culpability comes later. There will be plenty to go around in a fair hearing for both BP and the federal government, I’m sure.
As environmentalists have gained greater sway over U.S. federal policy and legislation, even reasonable land-based and coastal shelf drilling in 1,000 feet or less are not permitted. Oil companies therefore have been forced to drill farther out, in deeper waters, on more complex platforms, that maintain their position via global positioning satellites using on-board engines to offset ocean currents and wind.
Until the April 20 explosion hundreds of drilling platforms in the Gulf had experienced only one significant spill in more than 60 years, including many drilling in very deep water. Working on the bleeding edge of technology, this success in deepwater drilling obscured the omnipresent dangers, which led to overconfidence, which ultimately led to failure. Success and failure are always first cousins.
Something I ask the executive officers in our companies to address in their annual business plans is: “what can go wrong and what will you do if it happens?” It is the question Obama should have asked his direct reports … but didn’t.
Bold talk for someone who has never held a private sector job, a “real” job in my opinion, or even a political position giving executive experience. Now, after nearly 18 months of President Obama’s brand of leadership, hopefully those who voted for a man who was to herald in this chimerical millennium have come to their senses and realized that, stentorian rhetoric aside, proven experience and leadership really do matter when it comes to occupying the highest office of the land.
A case in point …
On April 20 a wellhead explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, killed eleven men and began spewing oil into the Gulf at a rate that was conservatively estimated at about 5,000 barrels a day. With the history of the Valdez oil spill and other spills around the world, one could reasonably expect that this would have piqued the attention of the people’s chief representative and leader in affairs of national interest. It didn’t.
As oil burbled 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf, Obama was flying back on April 20 from a fundraiser for Barbara Boxer. On Day Four of the developing crisis, April 23, the Obama family (including dog) took off for a three-day vacation in Asheville, NC to chomp on some ribs, play some golf, and get massaged at the Grove Park Resort. After hosting a White House reception for the NY Yankees on the 26th, eating a slice of rhubarb pie at Jerry’s Diner during a fundraiser in Iowa on the 27th, lunching at Peggy Sue’s Diner during another fundraiser in Missouri on the 28th, followed by another fundraiser at the “swank” Washington home of a DNC faithful on the 29th and a comedy routine with Jay Leno on May 1, Obama finally found time in his high priority schedule of play and politics to visit the Louisiana coast on May 2 – the 13th day of the crisis.
You’d think Obama was finally engaged in the unfolding disaster that could be his “Katrina” moment, but think again. Between Day 14 and Day 25, Obama would host the Navy football team and Cinco de Mayo celebration at the White House, have private receptions for Nobel laureate Elie Weisel and Harmid Karzai, take Michelle on a date at the glitzy Komi restaurant in D.C., play an afternoon round of golf at Ft. Belvoir, and fly to another fundraiser in Buffalo with a side visit for hot wings at Duffs before he would find time to make a speech in the Rose Garden on May 14 to tell the American people what he was doing concerning the oil spill.
OK. Now he’s engaged. Not really. Another round of golf on the 15th and 16th (does this guy have time for the presidency?), a plant tour in Ohio during another fundraiser on the 18th, then the knock-your-socks-off state dinner for Mexican President Calderón on the 19th, followed by a White House meeting with rock star Bono (that’s surely an “A” priority), more golf on the 22nd at Andrews AF base outside of Washington (he must be trying to play every course in the area), another fundraiser in S.F. for Boxer hosted by the very rich and beautiful Getty family on the 25th, then skipping the Memorial Day tradition of wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknown, off for another three-day weekend vacation in Chicagoland (the second in a little over a month) on the 27th, which he interrupts for part of the 28th for a photo op of him digging his finger in the sand of a Louisiana beach (what a guy) before heading back up to Chicagoland, BBQ and beers with Michelle on the 29th, then some pick-up basketball at the University of Chicago on the 30th.
June 1 (Day 43) OB hosts Sir Paul McCartney at a White House love fest where Paul (and Faith Hill, Jonas Brothers, Emmylou Harris, David Grohl, et. al.) serenaded the swooning Michelle (when you’re the president, nothing is too good for your sweetie) and Snookums Obama chortled that the Beatles “"helped to lay the soundtrack for an entire generation" (‘aw shucks). Thanking Obama and the event’s co-sponsor, the U.S. Library of Congress, McCartney couldn’t let it go without a dig: “After the last eight years, it’s great to have a president who knows what a library is.”
June 2 (Day 44) OB appears with the noted oil spill expert, Larry King, on “Larry King Live” and gave his best imitation of emotion. He said that he was “angry and frustrated” about the oil spill. Then asked how he felt about his job, OB said it is the best job on earth. (I can understand why – look at the perks.)
June 6 (Day 48) OB hosts a party at the White House and then shuffles off to Ford’s Theater with Michelle for an evening of laughs and music. No mention by the President or White House that it was the 66th anniversary of D-day.
June 7 (Day 49) OB addresses the graduating class of Kalamazoo Central High where he exhorts them to take responsibility for their successes and failures (now there’s a novel idea) and “when you screw up … it’s the easiest thing in the world to start looking around for someone to blame. Your professor was too hard; your boss was a jerk; the coach was playing favorites; your friend just didn’t understand. We see it every day out in Washington, with folks calling each other names and making all sorts of accusations on TV.” (Well, he should know; he’s an expert at finger-pointing.)
June 8 (Day 50) OB is interviewed by Matt Lauer on the Today show where he makes a statement that will be remembered in his legacy. Asked about the panels of experts he had convened and the investigations he had commissioned, Obama snorted that he visited the Gulf a month ago to meet with fishermen before most media "talking heads" were paying attention to the issue and that, "I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar; we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers — so I know whose ass to kick." I’m sure that threat sent shivers of fear down the spines of the BP execs.
How fitting that a President who speaks in gutter language would have an Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, threatening that the government would 'have its boot on the throat of BP.'" Coupled with the addiction to profanity of Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Immanuel, these guys sound more like thugs than high government officials.
The fact is Obama began taking incoming fire from the press at least by May 30 when the NY Times criticized his lethargy in an editorial. The media that had adored Obama and deflected his incompetence in his handling of so many issues was now turning on him. The petulant Obama did what he has done ever since he became president and is criticized – he blames someone else and finger-points, not taking the advice he gave the Kalamazoo kids. In the financial meltdown, it was the fault of the “big banks,” in the healthcare crisis it was “big pharma” and the “big insurance” companies, and now it’s “big oil” and the greedy capitalist profit seeking companies like BP. Without any evidence of culpability, he accused the “oil industry’s cozy and sometimes corrupt relationship with government regulators” and how that has meant “little or no regulation at all.”
Releasing his DOJ goons, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that criminal and civil investigations had begun into the oil spill, threatening criminal prosecution if any environmental laws were found to have been violated. Wow! Under the Damoclean threat of incarceration, Obama’s leadership style certainly has a way of motivating folks to solve a problem getting worse by the day. He went on to warn the company execs to “make sure that BP is not lawyering up.” Obama ought to be happy BP stayed on the problem instead of leaving to focus on its legal liabilities.
Obama’s nemesis, Sarah Palin observed: “50 days in, and we’ve just learned another shocking revelation concerning the Obama administration’s response to the Gulf oil spill. In an interview aired this morning, President Obama admitted that he hasn’t met with or spoken directly to BP’s CEO Tony Hayward. His reasoning: ‘Because my experience is, when you talk to a guy like a BP CEO, he’s gonna’ say all the right things to me. I’m not interested in words. I’m interested in actions.’”
Years ago I gave a leadership speech entitled “The Power of Your Presence.” I subsequently turned it into an article and then into a chapter of a book I authored. The first principle of leadership, which Obama’s calendar shows he doesn’t get, is showing up! His phlegmatic leadership style is more akin to a head of state than presidential governing, which he willingly delegates to his co-prime ministers, Pelosi and Reid.
Another leadership principle that the vainglorious Obama doesn’t get is: never promise what you can’t personally deliver. Yet on May 28, feeling the heat of the media questioning his competence, Leader Obama confidently proclaimed "I ultimately take responsibility for solving this crisis…I am the president and the buck stops with me … the American people should know that from the moment this disaster began, the federal government has been in charge of the response effort… In case you're wondering who's responsible, I take responsibility." Poppycock! No leader worth his salt would put his personal reputation or that of his organization at risk by promising an outcome over which he has absolutely no power to deliver.
I’ll mention one other important principle of leadership that Obama doesn’t get: what’s done is done. The present state is the starting point for solving every problem – not who did what, not why or how something happened. Begin where you are. Solving a problem and diagnosing its cause are separate issues. Because Obama doesn’t get this principle either, he is as interested, if not more interested, in fixing blame than focusing all of the energy and resources he can muster to work along side of the BP experts (who are paralyzed in Admiral Thad Allen’s command structure) to minimize the irreparable damage that this catastrophe will cause. Culpability comes later. There will be plenty to go around in a fair hearing for both BP and the federal government, I’m sure.
As environmentalists have gained greater sway over U.S. federal policy and legislation, even reasonable land-based and coastal shelf drilling in 1,000 feet or less are not permitted. Oil companies therefore have been forced to drill farther out, in deeper waters, on more complex platforms, that maintain their position via global positioning satellites using on-board engines to offset ocean currents and wind.
Until the April 20 explosion hundreds of drilling platforms in the Gulf had experienced only one significant spill in more than 60 years, including many drilling in very deep water. Working on the bleeding edge of technology, this success in deepwater drilling obscured the omnipresent dangers, which led to overconfidence, which ultimately led to failure. Success and failure are always first cousins.
Something I ask the executive officers in our companies to address in their annual business plans is: “what can go wrong and what will you do if it happens?” It is the question Obama should have asked his direct reports … but didn’t.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Their Longest Day
Sunday, June 6, will be just another day for most Americans, and the press, the talking heads, and who knows … maybe even President Obama. But it was not “just another day” for the allied troops who stormed the 50-mile wide Normandy beaches on the morning of June 6, 1944 in the largest amphibious assault in history. It was D-Day. For many, it was their longest day; for some their last day.
The purpose of the invasion of Western Europe -- code-named Operation Overlord – was to open a second front against Germany. The Italian campaign had begun in the fall of 1943 and lasted until the end of WW II in Europe. Plans for Overlord had been underway for more than two years and took their final shape in the spring of 1944. U.S. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower was chosen to be commander of Allied forces in Europe. Even though he had never been in combat and never commanded a combat troop unit, Eisenhower possessed uncanny political skills to deal with the complex egos of the allied commanders.
The time and place of the invasion of Western Europe was one of the best kept secrets of WW II. It was helped by the many deceptions the allies perpetrated to fool the German high command and German spies in England, which are chronicled in the book Bodyguard of Lies, whose title comes from an observation of Winston Churchill: "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
The allies used double agents and created a fake army with inflatable decoys, that at a distance of 100 yards, looked like real landing craft, tanks, and planes. They were stationed at phony bases around the Dover area of England so as to be surely seen by German reconnaissance fly-overs. Bogus radio traffic transmitted thinly disguised messages so any German intelligence unit with reasonable experience would deduce that the invasion point would be the Pas de Calais – the shortest transit of the English Channel – and that it would be “big and bad.” To complete the deception, the military unit to which these fake assets belonged was itself phony – the First U.S. Army Group (FUSAG) – commanded by Gen. George Patton, the allied field commander most respected (and feared) by the German high command. They were convinced that Patton would lead the invasion of Europe.
Both a full moon and the highest tide were needed to cross the Channel and land the invasion force – the former to provide the light for aircraft and landing craft; the latter to provide the tide depth needed to get over the beach obstacles placed by the Germans far out in the beach surf. This narrowed the choice to only a few days each month. June 5 was ideal but the weather in the Channel was terrible. With the assault troops already aboard the transport ships getting seasick in 5-foot swells, the invasion was delayed. If it couldn’t be made the following day, the invasion would have to wait another month. The weather forecast was good enough for June 6 to allow the invasion to begin. Ike said, “OK, let’s go.”
Overlord planning included sabotage by the French resistance, whose leaders were to be alerted by code words broadcasted in nonsense sentences. These would mean that invasion was imminent. The BBC periodically broadcasted meaningless sentences to confuse German intelligence. But a few days before D-Day, the resistance leaders heard the first line of Paul Verlaine's poem, "Chanson d'automne,” which says "Les sanglots longs des violons de l'automne" (Long sobs of autumn violins) meaning D-day would be soon. When the second line was broadcast, "Blessent mon cœur d'une langueur monotone" (wound my heart with a monotonous languor) the resistance knew the invasion would happen within the 48 hours. This was their signal to begin cutting communication lines, blowing up rail lines, bridges and key roads, and sending clandestine messages to England giving the latest German troop emplacements.
The June 5 weather actually gave the allies an unexpected advantage. When the BBC broadcasted the message to the resistance that evening, the German 15th Army in the Pas de Calais area decided that they were code words and went on full alert, but Rommel’s Army Group B guarding the Normandy beaches stood down, believing no one would attack in such turbulent weather. Some German commanders had even left their Normandy units to participate, ironically, in exercises to simulate an allied landing at Normandy. Rommel had gone home to celebrate his wife’s birthday.
The start of Operation Overlord was launched in a two-pronged attack – an airborne drop of 24,000 American, British, Canadian and Free French behind German lines shortly after midnight, followed by a massive amphibious landing of over 160,000 allied infantry and armored divisions at 0630 hours on five French beach segments called Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword from right to left as the beaches were approached. When the troop transports were spotted off Normandy and the war ships began shelling beach fortifications, none of the German high command would awake Hitler, who was asleep. This froze all German reserves in place, keeping them from reinforcing the beach defenses.
The Americans would attack at Utah and Omaha, the latter of which was shown in the opening sequences of Saving Private Ryan and was the beach at which the most savage fighting occurred. One 197-man company was killed or wounded within ten minutes of landing on the beach. Germans rained down mortars and artillery, killing many before they could even get out of their boats and nearly wiping out the first wave of invading forces while the survivors struggled for cover. Subsequent waves of assault LCAs had trouble landing because of all of the bodies churning in the surf.
"Every man who set foot on Omaha Beach that day was a hero," Gen. Omar Bradley, D-Day commander of U.S. ground forces, would later write.
The Canadians would land at Juno beach and would have to wade ashore through an enfilade fire screen that was sighted on the high tide mark, giving them a 50% chance of making it to the upper beach alive. As it turned out, one in 18 Canadians was killed, wounded, or missing. Defending the Juno area was the 12th SS Panzer Division, Hitlerjugend, a unit of mostly 18-year old fanatics who executed 12 captured Canadians. The savagery of fighting at Juno was second only to Omaha. The 12th SS Panzer Division would lose almost half of its troop strength before the Normandy campaign ended, after which it was withdrawn to Germany to be refitted and fight again in the Battle of the Bulge.
The British would attack Gold beach, where losses would be light, and the British and Free French would land at Sword beach. The battle for Sword beach lasted less than an hour with light casualties, but the fighting inland would be fierce, so fierce that the objective of the Sword beach landing – the road network at Caen – wouldn’t be taken until July 9.
The invasion fleet, under the command of Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, had been pulled together from eight navies and consisted of 6,900 vessels manned by 200,000 allied naval and merchant marine personnel – 1,200 warships, 4,100 transport ships and landing craft, 700 ancillary vessels, and almost 900 merchant vessels.
The Normandy beaches face north over the sea. To assure that a beachhead could be established and built up in successive waves of men and materiel, it was essential to prevent German counter-attacks that would need the road and bridge infrastructure behind the beaches – particularly the eastern and western flanks where Sword and Utah beaches were located. Therefore 13,000 men comprising the American 82nd and 101st airborne division parachuted into the western flank of the
Airborne landing zones had been identified by pathfinders – small units that parachute 30 minutes ahead of the main force to set up a transponder beacons to guide the following planes to their assigned areas. The American drop, in particular, bordered on disaster. A night drop had never been attempted before. The transponders didn’t work well. After crossing the Channel at 500 feet to get under enemy radar, the C-47 transports had to climb to 700 feet to get enough altitude for a parachute to open. Many planes flew into a cloud bank, became disoriented, and their pilots hit the green light “jump” switch, not knowing where they were. Others climbed above the clouds and hit the jump switch, which left the hapless paratroopers dangling long enough for Germans on the ground to shoot them on their descent. Anti-aircraft artillery blew up some planes. Seeing the flack, some pilots panicked and hit their jump switches so they could rid their human cargo and turn back to England.
As a result, almost half of the units that dropped in the pre-dawn hours of June 6 were scattered over so great an area, they were unable to rally. They stumbled around in the darkness trying to find each other and avoid the Germans. The Germans were as confused as the Americans because they didn’t know the locations and number of the invaders.
After 24 hours only 2,500 troops of the 101st and 2,000 of the 82nd were under the control of their division leaders. Most simply hooked up with NCOs and junior officers and began to improvise missions, their coup de main no longer possible.
Throughout D-day, allied fighter planes flew almost 15,000 sorties (one round trip by one airplane) over and behind the beaches to prevent German reinforcements. Less than 130 planes were lost. The allies had long since gained air supremacy over Germany.
Naval losses were 24 warships and 35 merchant ships or ancillary vessels, and a further 120 vessels damaged – a staggering number considering that German naval power in the Channel consisted of two torpedo boats. Most ships were hit from shore, some of which had crowded into keel depth water to run parallel with the beach and use shipboard cannons to blast German fortifications.
There are no official casualty figures for June 6, 1944. However, research by the US National D-day Memorial Foundation has verified that about 2,500 Americans were killed and about 2,000 allies from other nations died – about 4,500 men on that single day. The wounded and missing were estimated to be about an additional 8,000 total.
In the end, the allies won the Normandy campaign by the sheer weight of troop numbers and materiel. Three million men and 16 million tons of arms, ammunition, and supplies had been assembled in England for what Eisenhower called the Crusade in Europe. Despite the invasion fatalities, 100,000 soldiers made it ashore and survived the first day. By July, one million allies were in Normandy. Supplies were coming ashore at a rate of 20,000 tons per day. Allied forces crossed the Seine River on August 19. Paris was liberated six days later, ending the Normandy campaign at a cost of about 210,000 allied casualties.
Sixty-six years have passed since that June 6 in 1944. The shadows have lengthened for the men who went ashore that day – the majority of whom were under 25 years and many still teenagers. Most have gone to their reward.
I often wonder if the current generation could have won World War II. Sadly, I think not. The soldiers today are as brave as those of that day – maybe braver. They are, after all, volunteers whereas the warriors of WW II were often drafted into service. But today’s spineless politicians, the media, and maybe even the American people have no stomach for war on that scale. Too many today think that the options in dealing with the world’s bullies is either war or accommodation (aka appeasement) when the only real choice is, and has always been, either fight or surrender.
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction,” Ronald Reagan said. “We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
Throughout the year there are many dates I remember for their historic significance. But even as a young teenager, I never let a June 6 pass unnoticed or without a whispered, “Thank you.”
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